Meet Mark

Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Sisson. I’m 63 years young. I live and work in Malibu, California. In a past life I was a professional marathoner and triathlete. Now my life goal is to help 100 million people get healthy. I started this blog in 2006 to empower people to take full responsibility for their own health and enjoyment of life by investigating, discussing, and critically rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness...

By Worker Bee | February 14, 2018

Show yourself some love on Valentine’s Day by indulging in these heart-shaped dark chocolate candies. These treats are truly irresistible, with intense bittersweet flavor and a smooth, creamy texture that slowly melts in your mouth. There’s nothing questionable added, just health-giving ingredients like cacao butter, raw cacao powder, avocado oil, maple syrup, sea salt, and hazelnuts.

If you think making chocolate at home is too complicated, you’ll be surprised by how easy this recipe is. Simply melt cacao butter, then whisk in cacao powder, and PRIMAL KITCHEN Avocado Oil with a little sweetener, and you’ll be in chocolate heaven. What’s really fun about making chocolate at home is experimenting with all sorts of flavors. Nuts, nut butters, coconut flakes and coconut butter, spices, dried fruit…the flavor variations are endless.

By Guest | February 13, 2018

Today’s guest post is offered up by Sadie Radinsky, whom I had the pleasure of chatting with on a recent episode of her podcast, Jump For Joy. I think you’re going to love her story and be inspired by her success—in reclaiming her health and in following her passion. And the recipes she’s serving up? Grok never had it so good. Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Enjoy, everyone! And be sure to check out the giveaway at the end.

Hi, Mark’s Daily Apple! I’m Sadie, a 16-year-old food blogger, Paleo dessert chef and writer. I am so excited to share my health journey with you today, as well as two scrumptious Valentine’s Day treat recipes.

By Mark Sisson | February 13, 2018

“Maybe a Primal lens (at least in the anthropological sense) doesn’t make for the most sentimental post about romantic love. But there’s plenty of authentic awe, and maybe some thought-provoking sense, to be had….

[It]’s more than the emotional narcotic that makes us forget about everything else (in a wonderful and sometimes disorienting way). It’s more than the affirmation of conforming to social norms or the sensible sharing of household duties. Rudimentary desire and dispassionate reason might bring people together, but seldom do either (or both together) offer enough to make a long-term partnership enjoyable. Those might seem to be the ultimate primal motivations, and they certainly had their part, but I’m guessing there was more to Grok’s humanity than those.

By Mark Sisson | February 12, 2018

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering three questions from readers. First up, what are we to make of a recent study claiming to show that “high-fat diets” are harmful to rodents? Is it truly a high-fat diet, and what does it mean for us? For the second question, I field a comment from a reader experiencing a confluence of troubling symptoms and test results on his keto diet. And third, does keto actually cure diabetes, or just manage it?

By Mark Sisson | February 12, 2018

“Insufficient play is another major disconnect in modern life, causing reduced productivity, increased stress, and accelerated aging. Stuart Brown, author of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul and one of the world’s leading experts on play, calls play a ‘profound biologic process.’ He explains that play, across the span of a lifetime, promotes the development and maintenance of a ‘cognitively fluid mind.’

“Cognitive fluidity—being able to go with the flow, think outside the box, process what-if scenarios, and react quickly and effectively to changes in our environment—is believed by anthropologists to represent one of the most profound breakthroughs in human evolution. This breakthrough in brain function, probably emerging 60,000 years ago, meant that humans’ brains could link knowledge from different domains. The way humans understood and approached the world became both more flexible and more expansive. This enabled more creative use of technology, better transfer of knowledge between generations, and a resultant spike in human longevity. Cognitive fluidity is still essential today, helping us adapt and thrive in a complex, high-tech society. When we get stuck in patterns of overwork and overstress, we lose that important connection with our creative, intuitive, playful selves. Our work suffers and so does our happiness.”